Gone

At the center of this mix of police procedural and psychological thriller is Lorraine Rainie Conner, an ex-cop with a drinking problem whose car is found abandoned on a country road in Oregon on a particularly rainy November night. Leading the missing-person search is Carlton Kincaid, a no-nonsense state cop who'd rather be home with his wife and infant son. The search team calls in Pierce Quincy not because he's a former FBI profiler but because Rainie is his estranged wife, their marriage having come to a halt when her drinking resumed after 15 years of sobriety. Next on the scene is Quincy's daughter, Kimberly, who--you guessed it--is an FBI agent (or feebie ) working out of the Atlanta office. All these great minds converge to try to solve the mysterious disappearance of Rainie. Could she have been so depressed over her failed sobriety and marriage that she turned a standard-issue Glock on herself? As friendships build and mysteries unfold, Gardner keeps the suspense cranked high. Recommend this to fans of Lee Child. --Mary Frances Wilkens Copyright 2005 Booklist

Former FBI profiler Pierce Quincy's marriage is on the rocks, but things go from bad to worse when his wife, Rainie, goes missing. A kidnapper soon contacts Quincy with a somewhat unusual ransom demand, leaving Quincy and the investigation team with no choice but to play the kidnapper's game to keep Rainie alive. The story is told from alternating points of view, showing Quincy's efforts to find his wife and Rainie's struggle against her cruel captor. The plot is formulaic and derivative, but the abridgment makes it simple to follow, so listeners should have no trouble keeping up. Kairos's voice is light and pleasant, and while her narration is not superb, it does get the job done. Kairos modulates her voice sufficiently to distinguish between male and female voices, but the accents she attempts are beyond her and come off sounding a bit silly. For the most part, the narration is engaging and effectively propels the story forward, but Kairos-and Gardner-occasionally lays it all on a bit too thick, taking the narrative (and the narration) into the realm of tepid melodrama. Simultaneous release with the Bantam hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 21). (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Rainie Conner's car is found running by the side of the road, and her estranged husband, Pierce Quincy, is called in to answer questions. When a ransom note arrives signed by a notorious kidnapper from an earlier age, Pierce has no choice but to follow the instructions, even though he knows that Rainie's chances of returning alive are slim. Pierce blames himself for leaving her, blames her for allowing herself to be kidnapped, but most of all he is furious with the kidnapper and frustrated by the police investigation. In the meantime, a young police officer is killed, and Dougie, a small boy whom Rainie had been mentoring, is kidnapped. The story is told from the perspective of various characters, including the police investigator, the sheriff, Pierce, Rainie, Dougie, and the kidnapper. Anna Fields reads in a no-nonsense voice, narrating the action with a driving pace. She dramatically performs this thriller, which seethes with emotion. Recommended for most collections.-Juleigh Muirhead Clark, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Lib., Colonial Williamsburg Fdn., VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A cop--and mainstay of the Connor-Quincy series (The Killing Hour, 2003, etc.)--is kidnapped, but is it really for ransom? Usually Rainie Connor is as saucy, savvy and sexy as the genre allows, but she's not been herself recently. Actually, she's been a bundle of seriously jangled nerves. As a result, we find her being nasty to her lover/partner Pierce Quincy, and, even worse, seeking emotional solutions in a bottle. And then, just like that, she's gone! The Bakersville (Ore.) police find her car abandoned by the side of a mountain road, engine still running, purse on the passenger's seat, no sign of Rainie. Naturally, Quincy's distraught. He knows how resourceful Rainie is, and it's hard for the ex-FBI profiler to profile the kind of assailant who could have out-maneuvered and disarmed the redoubtable Rainie--her ever-present Glock has disappeared from her purse. Compounding Quincy's unsettlement is the realization that as spouse surrogate he heads the official suspect list. That changes when the ransom note arrives at the local newspaper. Now, at least, it's clear to law enforcement that they have a kidnapping on their hands. To Quincy, however, the paltriness of the number--$10,000--is disturbing. What seems obvious to him is that Rainie's kidnapping can hardly be about money. It's about something else, something--the thought scares him--personal. As ever, Gardner is hot to plot, but few are the twists fresh enough to counter been-there-read-that. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

At the center of this mix of police procedural and psychological thriller is Lorraine "Rainie" Conner, an ex-cop with a drinking problem whose car is found abandoned on a country road in Oregon on a particularly rainy November night. Leading the missing-person search is Carlton Kincaid, a no-nonsense state cop who'd rather be home with his wife and infant son. The search team calls in Pierce Quincy not because he's a former FBI profiler but because Rainie is his estranged wife, their marriage having come to a halt when her drinking resumed after 15 years of sobriety. Next on the scene is Quincy's daughter, Kimberly, who--you guessed it--is an FBI agent (or "feebie") working out of the Atlanta office. All these great minds converge to try to solve the mysterious disappearance of Rainie. Could she have been so depressed over her failed sobriety and marriage that she turned a standard-issue Glock on herself? As friendships build and mysteries unfold, Gardner keeps the suspense cranked high. Recommend this to fans of Lee Child. ((Reviewed December 1, 2005)) Copyright 2005 Booklist Reviews.

PI Pierce Quincy is frantic. His lover/partner has gone missing, though her bloodstained car has been located, and a troubled child whose case she has been handling is gone as well. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

A terrifying woman-in-jeopardy plot propels Gardner's latest thriller, in which child advocate and PI Lorraine "Rainie" Conner's fate hangs in the balance. Rainie, a recovering alcoholic with a painful past (who previously appeared in Gardner's The Third Victim , The Next Accident and The Killing Hour ) is kidnapped from her parked car one night in coastal Oregon. The key players converge on the town of Bakersville to solve the mystery of her disappearance: Rainie's husband, Quincy, a semiretired FBI profiler whose anguish over Rainie undercuts his high-level experience with kidnappers; Quincy's daughter, Kimberley, a rising star in the FBI who flies in from Atlanta; Oregon State Police Sgt. Det. Carlton Kincaid; local sheriff Shelly Atkins; and abrasive federal agent Candi Rodriguez, who specializes in hostage negotiation. Gardner suspensefully intercuts the complicated maneuvering of this bickering team with graphic scenes of Rainie bravely struggling with her violent, sadistic captor. When the rescuers make a misstep, he raises the stakes by snatching a troubled seven-year-old foster child named Dougie, who's one of Rainie's cases. The cat-and-mouse intensifies, as does the mystery of the kidnapper's identity. Sympathetic characters, a strong sense of place and terrific plotting distinguish Gardner's new thriller. (Jan. 31)